Search

We demonstrate gate-tunable giant field-dependent nonreciprocal transport (magnetochiral anisotropy) in a noncentrosymmetric superconductor $T_{\rm d}$-MoTe$_2$ in the thin limit. Giant magnetochiral anisotropy (MCA) with a rectification coefficient $\gamma$ = $3.1 \times 10^6$ T$^{-1}$ A$^{-1}$, is observed at 230 mK, below the superconducting transition temperature ($T_c$). This is one of the largest values reported so far and is likely attributed to the reduced symmetry of the crystal structure. The temperature dependence of $\gamma$ indicates that the ratchet-like motion of magnetic vortices is the origin of the MCA, as supported by our theoretical model. For bilayer $T_{\rm d}$-MoTe$_2$, we successfully perform gate control of the MCA and realize threefold modulation of $\gamma$. Our experimental results provide a new route to realizing electrically controllable superconducting rectification devices in a single material., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

The General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) will carry out a sensitive dark matter search by measuring low-energy ($\mathrm{E} < 0.25 \mathrm{GeV/nucleon}$) cosmic ray antinuclei. The primary targets are low-energy antideuterons produced in the annihilation or decay of dark matter. At these energies antideuterons from secondary/tertiary interactions are expected to have very low fluxes, significantly below those predicted by well-motivated, beyond the standard model theories. GAPS will also conduct low-energy antiproton and antihelium searches. Combined, these observations will provide a powerful search for dark matter and provide the best observations to date on primordial black hole evaporation on Galactic length scales. The GAPS instrument detects antinuclei using the novel exotic atom technique. It consists of a central tracker with a surrounding time-of-flight (TOF) system. The tracker is a one cubic meter volume containing 10 cm-diameter lithium-drifted silicon (Si(Li)) detectors. The TOF is a plastic scintillator system that will both trigger the Si(Li) tracker and enable better reconstruction of particle tracks. After coming to rest in the tracker, antinuclei will form an excited exotic atom. This will then de-excite via characteristic X-ray transitions before producing a pion/proton star when the antiparticle annihilates with the nucleus. This unique event topology will give GAPS the nearly background-free detection capability required for a rare-event search. Here we present the scientific motivation for the GAPS experiment, its design and its current status as it prepares for flight in the austral summer of 2021-22., 8 pages, 7 figures, Proc. 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2019), Madison, USA

The General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) is designed to carry out indirect dark matter search by measuring low-energy cosmic-ray antiparticles. Below a few GeVs the flux of antiparticles produced by cosmic-ray collisions with the interstellar medium is expected to be very low and several well-motivated beyond-standard models predict a sizable contribution to the antideuteron flux. GAPS is planned to fly on a long-duration balloon over Antarctica in the austral summer of 2020. The primary detector is a 1m3 central volume containing planes of Si(Li) detectors. This volume is surrounded by a time-of-flight system to both trigger the Si(Li) detector and reconstruct the particle tracks. The detection principle of the experiment relies on the identification of the antiparticle annihilation pattern. Low energy antiparticles slow down in the apparatus and they are captured in the medium to form exotic excited atoms, which de-excite by emitting characteristic X-rays. Afterwards they undergo nuclear annihilation, resulting in a star of pions and protons. The simultaneous measurement of the stopping depth and the dE/dx loss of the primary antiparticle, of the X-ray energies and of the star particle-multiplicity provides very high rejection power, that is critical in rare-event search. GAPS will be able to perform a precise measurement of the cosmic antiproton flux below 250 MeV, as well as a sensitive search for antideuterons., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, Low Energy Antiproton Physics Conference (LEAP) 2018, Paris (France)

We have investigated the variations in the transmission spectra of nanodiscs as well as metal hole array plasmonic structures as a result of the hydrogen adsorption-desorption processes. The structures have been shown to be a viable platform for all-optical hydrogen sensing in the infrared. In cases of both nanodisc and metal hole arrays, upon exposure to hydrogen, a redshift of the plasmon resonance band was observed. Response time as well as the magnitude of the spectral shift was similar for both plasmonic structure types.

Item does not contain fulltext Cohort studies have revealed that today’s children are watching more television than ever before (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). An average child will spend two hours per day in front of the television screen (SKO, 2012). Most of this time is spend watching shows on commercial channels like Disney XD and Nickelodeon (Sikkema, 2012). The amount of advertising on commercial channels like these is restricted by law, but may still take up to 20% of the broadcasting time (Europe.eu).

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Not all types of visual metaphors are equally easy to understand. As can be seen in Figures 1 to 3, all ads make use of the same visual metaphor, which suggests that the exclusivity of a pearl is similar to the exclusive taste of the depicted chocolate. However, whereas Figure 1 visually juxtaposes the source (pearl) to the target (chocolate), and Figure 2 combines the target and the source in one pictorial element, Figure 3 only visualizes the source (and leaves the representation of the target to the imagination of the receiver).

Recently Fashion TV series have gained more and more popularity among young women worldwide (Dehnart 2008; Seidman 2010). Fashion TV series are an immensely popular TV genre portraying the world of fashion and the accompanying glamorous lifestyle.

News programs are an important source of revenue for the media and communications industry. The FCC (2011) reports that advertising on news programs accounts for around 40% of a TV station’s revenue. A more recent report by the Pew Research Center (2013) points out that revenue from advertising expenditure on cable, local TV, and digital news platforms grew by at least 5% from 2011 to 2012.

Contains fulltext : 103215.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) Increasingly, advertisers use techniques that integrate persuasive messages into editorial content, resulting in blurred boundaries between advertising, entertainment, and information (Raney et al., 2003). Many of these techniques aim to reach children: Advergames, branded websites, and brand placements have invaded media targeted toward children (Calvert, 2008; Moore, 2004).

Contains fulltext : 111931.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access)

Contains fulltext : 102643.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) An important problem for advertisers is the general tendency to avoid advertising (Li et al., 2002; McCoy et al., 2008; Zanot, 1984). Ads typically get the 'blame' that they do not meet the goals and desires of consumers, thus the commercial message is perceived as disturbing and therefore avoided (Li et al., 2002, McCoy et al., 2008; Speck and Elliott, 1997). In order to reduce interference and ad avoidance, advertisers must use forms of marketing which reflect the situation of the consumer (Cho and Cheon, 2004).

Social Networks have become an important environment for Collective Trends extraction. The interactions amongst users provide information of their preferences and relationships. This information can be used to measure the influence of ideas, or opinions, and how they are spread within the Network. Currently, one of the most relevant and popular Social Networks is Twitter. This Social Network was created to share comments and opinions. The information provided by users is especially useful in different fields and research areas such as marketing. This data is presented as short text strings containing different ideas expressed by real people. With this representation, different Data Mining techniques (such as classification or clustering) will be used for knowledge extraction to distinguish the meaning of the opinions. Complex Network techniques are also helpful to discover influential actors and study the information propagation inside the Social Network. This work is focused on how clustering and classification techniques can be combined to extract collective knowledge from Twitter. In an initial phase, clustering techniques are applied to extract the main topics from the user opinions. Later, the collective knowledge extracted is used to relabel the dataset according to the clusters obtained to improve the classification results. Finally, these results are compared against a dataset which has been manually labelled by human experts to analyse the accuracy of the proposed method., The preparation of this manuscript has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the following projects: TIN2010-19872 and ECO2011-30105 (National Plan for Research, Development and Innovation), as well as the Multidisciplinary Project of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (CEMU2012-034). The authors thank Ana M. Díaz-Martín and Mercedes Rozano for the manual classification of the Tweets.

With the continuing growth of the paid inclusion of brands in television programs, the lines between editorial and commercial content are more and more blurred. This has attracted criticism from consumer advocacy groups, public policy officials, the media and consumers, claiming that sponsored content in TV programs is unethical and deceptive (Cain, 2011; Kuhn, Hume, & Love, 2010). They argue that because this form of advertising is embedded into program content, the commercial intent is kept hidden (Bhatnagar, Aksoy, & Malkoc, 2004). Consequently, viewers are not always aware of the commercial and persuasive purpose of sponsored program content, and - as a result - they do not activate their cognitive defences and can be influenced without being aware (Kuhn et al., 2010; Lee, 2008).

Social media enable consumers to easily share satisfying or unsatisfying consumption experiences with a multitude of other consumers. The result is a wealth of electronic word of mouth (eWOM), varying in tone from very positive to very negative. For companies, the circulation of negative eWOM is a source of great concern. Unsatisfactory consumption experiences, which were previously communicated as complaints only to a company representative or a few peers, are now publicly available through negative eWOM, which can seriously damage a company’s reputation and sales (e.g., Van Laer and De Ruyter, 2010).

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Mediated communication is moving away from the traditional concept of oneway mass communication in which a centrally located sender addresses a mass audience. In today’s interactive media landscape, people formerly known as ‘the audience’ (Rosen, 2006, June 27) are increasingly dictating the creation and dissemination of information. The opportunity for people to actively engage in the public-information process provides consumers with a rich and varied set of consumer opinions, often posted in the form of online product reviews. Online product reviews are seen as a persuasive source of information in the consumerdecision making process, shaping not only consumers’ attitudes but also their purchase behaviors (Bickart and Schindler, 2001; Chevelier and Mayzlin, 2006; Park and Kim, 2008; Senecal and Nantel, 2004).

The effectiveness of traditional advertising is increasingly debated (Lemonnier, 2008; Redondo and Holbrook, 2008). Traditional advertising is increasingly avoided (Bronner and Neijens, 2006; Franz, 2000). Therefore, advertisers try to find new ways to reach their target groups.

More and more consumers buy their products online. Consumers do not only conduct their online purchases on typical business-to-consumer websites, online auction websites are becoming a successful phenomenon as well. One of the largest auction sites is eBay, where sellers register their products for sale, and consumers bid on them. There are many incentives for consumers to switch from the traditional bricks-and-mortar store to the Internet for their purchases, such as time convenience and competitive prices. However, online consumers also face some hurdles. A great body of literature demonstrates that online consumers experience various risk concerns regarding the online purchase. These concerns are the main impediment for the growth of electronic commerce. Online marketers seem to acknowledge consumers’ risk perceptions and offer several cues on their websites that address specific risk concerns, so-called risk-relieving cues, with the goal to lower the consumers’ risk perceptions and finally to increase sales.

Here, we report that highly conductive polycrystalline anatase Nb-doped TiO2 (TNO) thin films can be prepared via crystallization of amorphous precursors under N2 atmosphere. An optimized TNO film on a glass substrate exhibited a low resistivity of 8.4 ×10-4 Ω cm and an absorbance of 6% at a wavelength of 460 nm. These transport and optical properties were comparable to those of TNO films fabricated by vacuum annealing. This demonstrates the potential of TNO as an electrode for GaN-based light-emitting diodes.

The General AntiParticle Spectrometer (GAPS) is a balloon-borne instrument designed to detect cosmic-ray antimatter using the novel exotic atom technique, obviating the strong magnetic fields required by experiments like AMS, PAMELA, or BESS. It will be sensitive to primary antideuterons with kinetic energies of $\approx0.05-0.2$ GeV/nucleon, providing some overlap with the previously mentioned experiments at the highest energies. For $3\times35$ day balloon flights, and standard classes of primary antideuteron propagation models, GAPS will be sensitive to $m_{\mathrm{DM}}\approx10-100$ GeV c$^{-2}$ WIMPs with a dark-matter flux to astrophysical flux ratio approaching 100. This clean primary channel is a key feature of GAPS and is crucial for a rare event search. Additionally, the antiproton spectrum will be extended with high statistics measurements to cover the $0.07 \leq E \leq 0.25 $ GeV domain. For $E>0.2$ GeV GAPS data will be complementary to existing experiments, while $E, Talk presented CIPANP2018. 13 pages, LaTeX, 7 figures. Higher resolution figs at http://gaps1.astro.ucla.edu/gaps/papers2018/cipanp18

Objective To compare mRNA concentrations of corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH), placenta specific-1 (PLAC1), and selectin-P in preeclamptic and normal pregnancies. Methods Peripheral blood samples were obtained from 43 pregnant women with preeclampsia and 41 control subjects. Plasma was harvested from samples and RNA extracted. Plasma RNA was analyzed using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay. Median concentrations of CRH, PLAC1, and selectin-P mRNA in plasma were compared, to assess possible differences in distribution. Data were also stratified and compared according to clinical severity of preeclampsia. Finally, CRH, PLAC1, and selectin-P were plotted against quantitative distributions of blood pressure and proteinuria. Results All markers were differently distributed between cases and controls. Median values in subgroups correlated with severity of preeclampsia. All markers correlated with both. Selectin-P was identified as the marker with the highest degree of correlation. No correlation was found between any markers in the control group and proteinuria or blood pressure. Conclusion CRH, PLAC1, and selectin-P are distributed differently in preeclampsia cases compared to controls and correlate with signs of preeclampsia. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Prenatal diagnosis of aneuploidy and single-gene disorders is usually performed by collecting fetal samples through amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling. However, these invasive procedures are associated with some degree of risk to the fetus and/or mother. Therefore, in recent years, considerable effort has been made to develop non-invasive prenatal diagnostic procedures. One potential non-invasive approach involves analysis of cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma or serum. Another approach utilizes fetal cells within the maternal circulation as a source of fetal DNA. At the present time, fetal gender and fetal RhD blood type within RhD-negative pregnant women can be reliably determined through analysis of maternal plasma. Furthermore, genetic alterations can be diagnosed in the maternal plasma when the mother does not have the alterations. However, the diagnosis of maternally inherited genetic disease and aneuploidy is limited using this approach. Non-invasive prenatal diagnosis through examination of intact fetal cells circulating within maternal blood can be used to diagnose a full range of genetic disorders. Since only a limited number of fetal cells circulate within maternal blood, procedures to enrich the cells and enable single cell analysis with high sensitivity are required. Recently, separation methods, including a lectin-based method and autoimage analyzing, have been developed, which have improved the sensitivity of genetic analysis. This progress has supported the possibility of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis of genetic disorders. In the present article, we discuss recent advances in the field of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis.

Objective Placental messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) has been shown to circulate in maternal plasma. We investigated concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), VEGF receptor-1 (VEGFR-1), and endoglin in subjects with preeclampsia, compared with normal pregnancies. Study Design Peripheral blood samples were obtained from preeclampsia (n = 43) and control subjects (n = 41). Plasma ribonucleic acid was subjected to analysis by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction assay to examine the mRNA distribution among women with preeclampsia and control subjects during weeks 35-41 of gestation. Results Concentrations of VEGF, VEGFR-1, and endoglin mRNA of women with preeclampsia were significantly increased. The mRNA values were observed to correlate directly with the severity of hypertension and proteinuria. VEGFR-1 mRNA was markedly elevated in women with preeclampsia and hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelet syndrome. Conclusion The mRNA concentrations of VEGF, VEGFR-1, and endoglin were observed to correlate directly with the severity of preeclampsia.